[ufo]

But do we really need to submit beginners to things like segmentation faults, arrays without bound checks and the lack of a reasonable string datatype?

There is no reason to use C as a first language when you can just as well teach all the basic ideas in a more friendly environment and then go through all of K&R in 2 weeks or so.

[Androsynth]

The problem with OOP is that its really not something that should be taught to people who are first learning to program. It is extra complexity and doesn't add any value for beginners. That is my problem with Python.

C has its disadvantages, but you get: 1-a simple syntax 2-good mental exercises in learning, implementing and debugging pointer based data structures 3-a good idea of what is happening at the processor level when a computer program is being run.

You simply don't get that combination in any other language.

There are caveats of course: theres the functional vs procedural argument (which is a higher level argument than this). There could also be a good point that OOP should be the very first thing a student should learn, but only if you teach them a smalltalk based language, not python, java, C++ etc.

For the context of my argument, I chose: 'for teaching first year CS majors their first procedural programming language, what is the best choice?'

[ufo]

Where did you get the idea that I was supporting OOP-first? Its a terrible idea too.

In any case, I think Python is a great procedural language out there for a beginner - you can use the classes as if they were just structs and go a long way with that.

[graeme]

I started learning programming in January using K & R. C is great. Doing so many things manually really teaches you what is going on. It's definitely challenging, but I think I'm learning faster this way.